Dance More

I find myself, often, circling around the metaphysical confluence of my mother’s absence and my daughter’s presence. The two currents meet, press against each other, and ultimately merge into one driving force.

I was on a massage table this week, having work done by a woman who seemed to know everything about me simply by touching me, or being near me. I didn’t tell her anything, and she didn’t ask, she just started making observations: You don’t breathe enough. You are a perfectionist and you really don’t like when you’re not in control. You had a bad cold this winter, and you suffer from interrupted sleep, but the good news is you don’t get headaches. Your job is challenging for you because you’re really an introvert who has to function as an extrovert…and then this: There is a fear in you...I know everyone has fears, and I don’t need to know what yours is, but in you, it is deep.

Driving home, last weekend, from the wedding of some friends, I was reflecting on how much the bride seemed to enjoy being the bride. She was lovely and happy and graceful. Her groom was entranced, as were all of the guests. This has been true, I think, of every bride I’ve ever seen--except myself. I’ve never thought of myself as introverted. I’m good with people. I know how to socialize in a variety of different settings, I can make people laugh, hold my own in conversation, and make others feel comfortable and included. I enjoy being in front of my students; I enjoy leading the class and love when the kids are engaged and having fun. But when I was the bride, I was incredibly uncomfortable. I love hosting parties, but my idea of hosting is generally orchestrating a pleasant time for others from behind the scenes. 

After my massage, I searched for introvert online and did a personality test. I read this synopsis after giving my answers: “Given the choice, you'll devote your social energy to the people you care about most, preferring a glass of wine with a close friend to a party full of strangers. You think before you speak, and relish solitude. You feel energized when focusing deeply on a subject or activity that really interests you. You have an active inner life, and are at your best when you tap into its riches.” (I'm writing this from my friend Char's quiet cabin on the still-frozen Saranac Lake, glad for the solitude)

While I don’t always think before I speak, the rest of the synopsis accurately describes me. And I did have a bad cold this winter (all of December), and I don’t breathe deeply enough. I will never forget the awful day when my trumpet teacher in sixth grade, Mr. Depesquale, put his hand on my stomach to try to teach me how to breathe deeply into my abdomen, rather than the shallow lung breaths I was taking; at that point I'm pretty sure I held my breath. I do suffer interrupted sleep, almost nightly, and it’s true that I rarely get headaches. I hate being out of control and I do aim for perfection, though I try to temper that by tolerating the greasy handprints and dog nose prints on the door glass, low windows and stainless steel of my house. My masseuse was incredibly accurate in her reading of me. And when she observed that I was harboring some sort of deep fear, I knew what it was instantly and without doubt. 

If Sam had been on the table, and she had been making such observations about him, he would have politely ignored her. He is a skeptical and rational person, but I have always believed in the potential for that kind of mystical knowledge. As a kid I had a reoccurring dream that our house burned down; when we moved to a new house, the dream moved with me. Each time my house burned down, there was always one wall left standing in the ruble: the wall that my grandfather’s sunset painting was on. I was obsessed with sunsets, and in awe of my grandfather. At the lake, most evenings, I sat on the black slanted rock on the backside of the dock by myself, watching the sky light up as the sun went down. I wrote in my journal, took pictures, and just tried to capture the immense and magical beauty for my memory. 

One summer my grandfather told my sister and me that we could go downstairs to his painting studio and choose one of his paintings to keep. Most were sailboats or seascapes, some were biplanes, some were houses. There was one scary and alluring topless woman I couldn’t stop myself from looking at when no one was looking at me, and there was one flame orange sunset over a small sandy island with a palm tree. The sunset was unique among his other work and it was, without doubt, my favorite. I loved it as it was in spite of the fact that he cringed when I chose it and told me it wasn’t finished. I couldn’t be dissuaded; he said I could pick any one I wanted and I desperately wanted it. With visible hesitation he agreed, but he told me he had to finish it first. I was willing to wait. 

The next summer, our last summer at the lake, our last summer with my grandfather alive, he presented the finished sunset painting to me. I was happy and then I was overwhelmed with gratitude when my grandmother pulled me aside and told me that my grandfather had worked each day to finish it for me...my grandfather who had to use a walker to get around, after falling the previous winter and breaking a hip, discovering the cancer in his bones. Each day he had carefully inched his way around the outside of the house to get to his basement studio, because he could no longer go down the stairs. It was an act of love that humbled me, and his determination to fulfill his promise made a strong impact on me...strong enough, in fact, that in my dreams, in fire after fire, that painting has never been harmed. 

When I couple that dream with the other fires I’ve dreamt about, two fires that actually happened within hours of my dreaming them, I feel convinced some people really do have the power to know things. And when my masseuse acknowledged my deep fear, and I envisioned what I am most afraid of, I was certain she and I were looking at the same image.

Early this morning I woke up in the middle of a seemingly endless dream. I was dressed and ready for my wedding re-do. Sam and I have talked a few times about someday doing our wedding over again--either renewing our vows or just celebrating an anniversary with the kind of big, relaxed, outdoor party we probably should have had in the first place. Our actual wedding was the event I thought I was supposed to have. It was one for which I was ill-suited. I bought my wedding dress online, tried it on on the back porch of our under-construction house, on the decking I installed so I could see my reflection in the glass door. I did not (and do not) own a full length mirror. I forced my friends to dance with us for our first dance because I was too gripped with anxiety to dance alone in front of everyone. When we cut our cake, we did it surreptitiously, when few people were watching. I was so afraid of being bad at being a bride that I was.

When we have our re-do, we’ll be at our house with family and friends spilling out onto the porch and the grass. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a band playing and everyone will dance. We’ll bbq, or roast a pig as Sam wants to do, and we’ll drink local beer in plastic cups. There will be dogs and kids running around. I might wear a skirt, but I might just wear shorts. And I will kiss Sam openly and often, and I will tell him again, in front of everyone there, why I love him so much and all the ways I re-promise to try to honor him and our relationship. In my dream this morning, the stage was set for this type of event, but we couldn’t start because my mother hadn’t arrived yet. I kept circling around, through rooms and people, looking for her. I knew she would arrive soon; I insisted we wait just another few minutes. Everyone in my dream was waiting, glancing at doors, out windows, scanning the room full of faces. I could picture her nearby, dressed and ready to celebrate, and smiling, so I never gave up waiting, until I woke up and then I realized, of course: she’s not coming...she wasn’t there the first time and she won’t be there when we do it again.

I find myself, often, circling around in the current created by the joint force of my mother’s absence and my daughter’s presence. The energy present in my daughter’s life swirls effortlessly into the empty spaces left behind the hard fact of my mother’s death. She fills the void.

Recently Quinn told me, “Mom, you’re my best mom ever.” “Thanks,” I told her, “but I’m your only mom.” Quinn’s face took on a look of concerned sincerity, “Oh no, Mom,” she told me, with an uncanny smile, “I had hundreds of moms before you, but then I came to you as your baby, and I’ve decided, since then, that you are my best mom ever.” I don’t know what Quinn knows about reincarnation, but sometimes the things she says have an eery quality that strike me as possibly true.

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day… 

"Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” 

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. 

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.” 

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?” 

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept…”*

Traveling through each day with Quinn is an immeasurable joy. Perhaps it is unnecessary to say, at this point, that the passing of these days is also the deep fear I carry with me as I watch her grow. Each day passed is a day that cannot be relived; each life is made of a finite number of days. A void that is filled is still a void. 

I want Quinn to live a full and free life, and while she does I’ll keep working to capture the immense and magical beauty of her in some way I can hold onto, until I become Real enough to stand back and be glad simply that she has been here with me at all. 

The last thing my masseuse told me was that I should dance more. It seems like a good goal to have.



*from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams